The Indian budget every year has always been an eagerly awaited event. For many decades, the best minds in economics, finance, tax, business and industry throng the media house to analyze the provisions shared by the Financial Minister.
Sometimes major events completely disconnected may be data points for the plans of the different powers around the world. The challenge is to discern what purpose they serve? More critically, what are we moving towards?
When the US Ambassador threatened India's "Strategic Autonomy" policy over India's friendship with Russia - much more than meets the eye was at stake. Let us unpack how the Ukraine war has fundamentally changed the US and the world. And why are we here anyway?
We saw recently that Italian chopper deal of Fe.. with India was in trouble in Italy because of corruption. Now it comes out that the requirements were tweaked to help this Italian firm win the contract!
India allegedly tweaked the technical requirements in the tender to procure 12 VVIP helicopters for the Air Force to help Italian manufacturer AgustaWestland enter the race, an associate of the suspected middleman in the deal has alleged in his confession to Italian prosecutors.
In his testimony, the associate of Guido Haschke said the AW 101 chopper did not qualify initially as the requirements were being drawn by India in 2006. They were allegedly tweaked after Haschke struck a deal with the Italian company.
Strangely these helicopters are to be used by the VVIPs – which are essentially the politicians. And the technical requirements were changed to accommodate the needs of one company because the middleman had relationships in the Defense Ministry.
Messina says AgustaWestland figured out its choppers would not qualify for the contract after it contacted Haschke. He says Haschke managed to get the requirements changed to accommodate AgustaWestland.
“He told me he managed to convince the Indians, or actually the defence ministry, to reconsider the features of the helicopters so that Italian helicopters too could take part in the tender,” Messina says. “After some evaluation, it was found Haschke was right and the… ministry had really modified the technical features of the helicopters it needed.”
Messina says he received “50,000-60,000 euros in cash” from Haschke as a “thank you sign” in 2009.
Btw, just so you don’t get confused between the company mentioned in the last article on this deal and this one – AgustaWestland became a wholly owned subsidiary of Finmeccanica.
The Indian budget every year has always been an eagerly awaited event. For many decades, the best minds in economics, finance, tax, business and industry throng the media house to analyze the provisions shared by the Financial Minister.
When the US Ambassador threatened India's "Strategic Autonomy" policy over India's friendship with Russia - much more than meets the eye was at stake. Let us unpack how the Ukraine war has fundamentally changed the US and the world. And why are we here anyway?
This visit of India left me with many questions. Many observations and inputs from different people and sections. Food for thought that I have tried to contemplate on and make sense of. Sharing all that with you.
When you analyze the last 60 years of the economic miracles of Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia versus the continued impoverished Indian economy, you get very interesting lessons. Can Indians have the wherewithal in them to do in one generation so that the coming generations may rise?
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